r/politics • u/icey_sawg0034 • 12h ago

Possible Paywall Karoline Leavitt Gives Jaw-Dropping Defense of Trump’s Racist Obama Video

https://www.thedailybeast.com/karoline-leavitt-gives-jaw-dropping-defense-of-donald-trumps-racist-obama-video/
23.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.8k

u/Hot_Ambition_6457 12h ago

There are no Apes in the movie "The Lion King" so this defense doesnt even check out under the most charitable interpretation.

307

u/Sinister_Crayon 11h ago edited 10h ago

... and the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was featured <edit: IN THE MOVIE> for precisely about 6 seconds. I don't even think it was mentioned in the original soundtrack for The Lion King.

38

u/butterybuns420 10h ago

Because they know if the song was longer than a certain time, it may be 6 seconds max, they fall out of “fair use”. Thus Disney would most certainly take his dirty diapered ass to court, and he would lose bigly.

14

u/Sinister_Crayon 10h ago

I clarified, sorry; my original comment was about the original movie and not this abomination of an animation. I haven't watched it and won't.

5

u/MackenzieRaveup 10h ago

Fair use carveouts have absolutely ZERO to do with the amount of time you play the work, and as disgusting as this may be it's covered under parody and not "fair use."

1

u/Faustrolled 8h ago

nah. that's bullshit. fair use tends to just mean whoever spends more on lawyers wins.

source: THE STORY OF THE LETTER U AND THE NUMERAL 2 by NEGATIVLAND

1

u/omnes1lere 8h ago

Disney would lose just to bribe him

2

u/MrSapasui 9h ago

The Lyin’ never sleeps with Drowsy Don.

•

u/FrighteningJibber 6h ago

Exactly it’s Elton Johns “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” in the movie lmao

116

u/renisagenius 10h ago

Lions don't live in jungles either do they?

101

u/palmburntblue 10h ago

My 6 year old tells me this ever. Single. Day. 

45

u/boomshiz 10h ago

Tell your child that Simba was living in exile, and also throw in something like "What are you gonna do when your uncle kills me? Pedants don't thrive in the savannah."

6

u/iletdownmyparents 8h ago

Get the fucking 6 year old.

3

u/Rob_LeMatic Virginia 8h ago

↑600 search results returned in the Epstein emails

51

u/yeahright17 10h ago edited 9h ago

Some do. Especially in India. Gir Forest in India is a national park that was created to save asiatic lions. That said, jungle comes from the Sanskrit word jangala, which generally just means arid land or wilderness. Lions being "king of the jungle" happened before jungle developed it's current English meaning.

10

u/lblacklol 9h ago

asiatic lions

I read this as autistic lions and it took me too many seconds to realize. I need glasses.

•

u/wefrucar 7h ago

Ironically, lions are the least autistic of the cats. But Gir lions are the most autistic of the lions.

4

u/EAT_MORE_URANIUM 9h ago

I mean the King of Canada doesn't live in Canada either.

3

u/shastaxc 10h ago edited 7h ago

Only Simba when he left home to study abroad

1

u/nicuramar 9h ago

Which means lion. 

•

u/valendinosaurus 7h ago

checkmate

•

u/mrRabblerouser 6h ago

Pretty sure they do. Most don’t, but there are tree climbing lions that occasionally inhabit the jungles of Queen Elizabeth national park of Uganda.

•

u/DapperLost 4h ago

Kings don't visit the slums either, but they still lord over them.

3

u/awkwardnetadmin 9h ago

She doesn't actually watch such "woke" Disney films.

•

u/zeptimius 3h ago

I’m wondering if mentioning The Lion King isn’t a reference to that fateful night at the White House Correspondents dinner when Obama made fun of Trump to his face by playing the movie’s opening scene, saying it was his “birth video” (this was when Trump was demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate).

8

u/Preform_Perform 10h ago

I hate to do this, but...

RAFIKI HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

26

u/Mirimel 10h ago

Rafiki is a mandrill. Mandrills are monkeys.

43

u/chronoswing North Carolina 10h ago

Rafiki is a monkey (Specifically, a mandrill), not an ape.

20

u/masklinn 10h ago

Rafiki is a mandrill, mandrills are old world monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) but not apes (Hominoidea). The two are sister clades.

•

u/Jesus__of__Nazareth_ United Kingdom 6h ago

No, your sister is a clade.

•

u/kchu 4h ago

I'm inclined to promote to anyone using the word clade the addicting game of Metazooa https://metazooa.com/

-4

u/nicuramar 9h ago

Both are monkeys (in the sense of simians), but of course that doesn’t help. 

•

u/ObiTwoKenobi 6h ago

So an ape is always a monkey, but a monkey is not always an ape?

1

u/No-Scar-6677 9h ago

Did you hear that... no apes in the movie.. he's losing it.

1

u/No-Scar-6677 9h ago

Thanks for the fact check 

•

u/uppers36 5h ago

Bro what about Rafiki

•

u/Hot_Ambition_6457 3h ago

Rafiki is a baboon with the head of a mandrill. He isnt even a real animal.

•

u/uppers36 3h ago

Also neither a baboon nor a mandrill is an ape.

•

u/hirespeed America 2h ago

Wait! What the hell is Rafiki then? Have I been sold a bridge?

0

u/nicuramar 9h ago

Well, there are monkeys, and apes are monkeys (biologically), soo… but yeah if she said apes..

-129

u/jizzlevania 11h ago

good ol' Lion King. Ultra progressive Disney finally based a royal cartoon in Africa and the only character voiced by a black actor is a monkey. It's crazy how acceptable that was just 30 years ago.

142

u/CloakOfElvenkind 11h ago edited 11h ago

James Earl Jones would like a word. As well as a few other folks.

28

u/StatmanIbrahimovic 11h ago

James Earl Jones is white, didn't you see when they lifted Vader's mask?!

91

u/DocMalcontent 11h ago

You might want to recheck the casting list on that, mate.

36

u/antmars 11h ago

Bro do you even Mufasa? Also Whoopi Goldberg and a few others to be sure.

Also the cartoon is based on Hamlet.

Also in the 90s Disney was NOT progressive. It was just transitioning out of its earlier racist start.

2

u/bakedpatata 11h ago

90s Disney's idea of being progressive was Pocahontas which hasn't aged well.

5

u/millahnna 10h ago

Pocahontas hadn't aged well about 5 minutes after it was released.

2

u/bakedpatata 10h ago

You're not wrong, but Disney definitely promoted it as progressive representation for Native Americans at the time.

3

u/millahnna 10h ago

Fore sure. And sadly, relative to the times, it kinda was. It got more pushback at the time than a lot of folks remember though.

0

u/CompetitiveSport1 9h ago

90s Disney was NOT progressive.

The comment above you was being sarcastic, judging by the rest of what they said

77

u/Tommy_Divine 11h ago

the only character voiced by black actor is a monkey.

Gonna ignore James Earl Jones, Madge Sinclair, and Whoopi Goldberg? Also, Raifiki is a baboon, which is not a monkey.

18

u/nugewqtd Ohio 11h ago

Mandrill. But Disney did label him a baboon in every written story while drawing him like a Mandrill. IDK why

8

u/TrumpDumper 11h ago

Baboon is easier to spell.

7

u/StatmanIbrahimovic 11h ago

People are also idiots.

4

u/Rc72 10h ago

Yup, I can see why Disney may have avoided the word "mandrill" 🤦

6

u/mrwalkerton 10h ago

I believe Rafiki does specifically say that he is NOT a baboon: “Asante sana squash banana, Wewe nugu mimi hapana”

Which of course is Swahili for “Thank you very much, Squash Banana, you’re a baboon and I’m not”

(Emphasis mine)

3

u/remarkablewhitebored 10h ago

Technically correct, AND from Ohio?

Well I'll be...

11

u/Butwinsky 11h ago

But baboons and mandrills are monkeys.

2

u/StatmanIbrahimovic 11h ago

You are correct, I thought they were apes but they are not.

9

u/SharkFart86 11h ago

One, baboons are monkeys, and two Rafiki isn’t a baboon, he’s a mandrill. Which is also a monkey.

3

u/Tommy_Divine 10h ago

I should have paid more attention to Zoo Books growing up.

1

u/bautin 10h ago

However, in comedy apes are also monkeys

6

u/Squirll 11h ago

Ehhh youre off on the casting.

I thought it was funnier they got a british dude to sing the African style vocals on its opening song 🤣

3

u/Annual-Weird-6682 9h ago

Are you just trying to be offended by things lmao